s? For it was the consummation of a long series of such; they and
their fathers had long kept voting so. A singular People; who could both
produce such divine men, and then could so stone and crucify them; a
People terrible from the beginning!--Well, they got Barabbas; and they
got, of course, such guidance as Barabbas and the like of him could give
them; and, of course, they stumbled ever downwards and devilwards, in
their truculent stiffnecked way; and--and, at this hour, after eighteen
centuries of sad fortune, they prophetically sing "Ou' clo!" in all the
cities of the world. Might the world, at this late hour, but take note
of them, and understand their song a little!

Yes, there are some things the universal suffrage can decide,--and about
these it will be exceedingly useful to consult the universal suffrage:
but in regard to most things of importance, and in regard to the choice
of men especially, there is (astonishing as it may seem) next to no
capability on the part of universal suffrage.--I request all candid
persons, who have never so little originality of mind, and every man has
a little, to consider this. If true, it involves such a change in our
now fashionable modes of procedure as fills me with astonishment and
alarm. _If_ popular suffrage is not the way of ascertaining what the
Laws of the Universe are, and who it is that will best guide us in
the way of these,--then woe is to us if we do not take another method.
Delolme on the British Constitution will not save us; deaf will the
Parcae be to votes of the House, to leading articles, constitutional
philosophies. The other method--alas, it involves a stopping short, or
vital change of direction, in the glorious career which all Europe, with
shouts heaven-high, is now galloping along: and that, happen when it
may, will, to many of us, be probably a rather surprising business!

One thing I do know, and can again assert with great confidence,
supported by the whole Universe, and by some two hundred generations of
men, who have left us some record of themselves there, That the few Wise
will have, by one method or another, to take command of the innumerable
Foolish; that they must be got to take it;--and that, in fact, since
Wisdom, which means also Valor and heroic Nobleness, is alone strong in
this world, and one wise man is stronger than all men unwise, they can
be got. That they must take it; and having taken, must keep it, and do
their God's Message in it